


From the Summer to the Spring

by xfilessage



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: M/M, Matt POV, Seasons, law school avocados, title is from "into the fire" by thirteen senses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-20
Updated: 2018-06-20
Packaged: 2019-05-26 01:33:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14989847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xfilessage/pseuds/xfilessage
Summary: Four seasons with Matt and Foggy in law school.





	From the Summer to the Spring

****_ Fall _

 

Matt Murdock’s first month of law school was going better than he could have ever expected.

The campus was relatively easy to navigate, his professors were interesting, he hadn’t gotten the dreaded ‘Freshman Flu’ that he had been warned about, and he seemed to have won the lottery when it came to roommates. Matt had heard several horror stories from people in his classes; one boy had told Matt that  _ his _ roommate spent every night talking on the phone with his girlfriend until at least one o’clock in the morning. A girl had shared that  _ her  _ roommate never cleaned up after herself and left half-eaten plates of food all over their dorm room.

All things considered, Foggy Nelson seemed pretty decent.

He and Matt were going for the same degree, so they had a lot of the same classes. In fact, the only difference was their elective class; where Matt had chosen to take Spanish, knowing how many people in Hell’s Kitchen spoke it, Foggy had enrolled in Punjabi to spend time with some girl named Daria, who he still insisted he had a chance with. Matt had never met this Daria-- Foggy had said that if Daria ever saw how attractive Matt was, she would never talk to Foggy again. That didn’t make her sound like a very nice person, but all Matt could do was trust his roommate’s judgement.

At the moment, Matt and Foggy were walking back to their dorm room from that afternoon’s introduction to law class. The air was crisp and cool; Matt could taste the moisture dancing in every gust. Foggy was talking about something, but Matt was focused more on the sound of the leaves crunching beneath his feet as they walked. Before he lost his sight, he had always loved going to the park with his father to look at all of the fallen leaves, their brilliant colours ranging from lemon yellow to the dark red-orange of rust. After Matt lost his sight, however, Jack Murdock had been determined to make sure his son still got to enjoy the fall. No matter how sore he was from his boxing matches, he would scrape together a pile of leaves, and Matt would jump through the pile, crunching the leaves under his cheap sneakers. They had vowed to make it a new tradition, but that first fall after Matt lost his sight was the last one they had ever gotten together.

All of a sudden, Foggy laughed, rousing Matt from his thoughts. “Hey,” he said, stopping Matt with one hand and taking his cane with the other.

It was only Foggy, but Matt still felt as if he were a child again, having his cane ripped out of his hands by kids far taller, who should have had more sense than that. “What are you doing?” he asked.

“Feel it,” Foggy said. “The cane, I mean.”

Matt ran his hand along the length of the cane. His fingers came to something thin and brittle; a leaf, skewered on its tip. He chuckled. “It’s like I’m picking up garbage for community service.”

“Yeah. Good thing I’m a lawyer, then.”

Matt smiled and plucked the leaf off, rubbing it between two fingers until it crumbled. Along with the sky, fall leaves were one of the things he missed seeing the most.

“What colour is this?” he asked.

“Orange,” responded Foggy.

“Oh, come on. Be more specific than that.”

“Okay. Uh…” Foggy paused for a moment. “When you were a kid, did you ever get those creamsicles from the corner store for, like, two dollars? This leaf looks like that. Really, impossibly bright orange.”

A grin spread across Matt’s face. “I can picture it perfectly,” he said. “Will you tell me more?”

“More leaves?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.” Foggy’s footsteps crunched across the leaf-strewn grass, and then he pressed a damp leaf into Matt’s hand. “This one's nice. It’s still kind of green, but on its way to yellow. Like lemon-lime Gatorade, but… softer, somehow.” He laughed. “I’m sorry, Matt. That was terrible.”

“No, it was good.” There was something very organic about the way Foggy described things, and it made Matt’s chest feel warm. 

Foggy took the lemon-lime leaf out of Matt’s hand and put a frail one in its place. “This one is red. Kind of blood red. But it has these veins running through it that are still yellow. It looks like fire. Here… can I…?”

It took Matt a moment to realize that Foggy’s hand was hovering expectantly above his. “Yeah, go for it,” he replied. 

Foggy laid his hand on top, his fingers sliding slightly in between Matt’s. A shiver ran down Matt’s neck, despite his scarf. Foggy guided his hand on top of the leaf, brushing both of their fingers over its raised veins. The entire gesture felt intimate somehow. 

“Thank you,” breathed Matt.

Foggy dropped Matt’s hand. “Do you want me to describe more leaves?” he asked.

“Um…” Matt’s head was buzzing with the feeling of Foggy’s hand against his. “…Yeah. If you don’t mind.”

Foggy gave a soft laugh. “I don’t mind at all, Matt.”

 

_ Winter _

 

“ _ Fuck,  _ it’s cold in here,” groaned Foggy.

Matt shivered. “The more you talk about how cold it is, Fog, the colder it’s gonna feel.”

It had been exactly four hours, twenty-one minutes, and seventeen seconds since the heat had gone out in their dormitory. Studying for midterms had been difficult before, but now, it was damn near impossible. Matt and Foggy were wearing layers upon layers of every shirt, sweater, and coat that they’d had lying around the room, but the cold seemed to cut through everything like a knife. To stay as far away from the frigid glass of the windows as possible, they had moved their stack of textbooks and study notes to the middle of the floor, where they sat in a heap of blankets and towels.

Matt set down the sheet of braille he was reading to rub his hands together. They were stiff from the cold; unlike Foggy, who could fumble through his notes with a thick pair of gloves on, Matt could not read braille if his hands were covered. 

_ Fuck, it’s cold in here,  _ he thought. 

Just then, he heard Foggy stand up. He walked a few steps, and then Matt heard the rustling of sheets and the groan of a cheap bed frame. “What are you doing?” he asked.

“Pulling the blanket off of my bed,” Foggy told him. “It’s the last one we have left.”

A few moments later, Foggy’s footsteps returned. “Here,” he said. Matt felt the blanket’s weight fall onto his shoulders.

“No, you should take it,” he told Foggy. “It’s from your bed.”

“Yeah, but you look freezing, Matt,” replied his roommate, sitting back down. “I… I’m not even that cold, you know. I’m fine.”

Not only did Foggy’s heartbeat quicken, signalling a lie, but Matt could hear the faint sound of his teeth chattering. He sighed. After shifting aside the books and papers between him and Foggy, he scooted over so that their sides were pressed together. Although there had to be about eight layers of fabric between them, Matt could still feel warmth spread across Foggy’s skin. He smiled, pulling the blanket across Foggy’s shoulders, too. “This way we can both be warm.”

Foggy’s heart was racing now. “Good idea,” he responded, his voice soft. 

Matt rubbed his hands together again. Just then, gloved fingers clamped around his wrist. “Jesus, Matt! Your hands are  _ red.  _ Why aren’t you wearing gloves?”

“I can’t read with them on.”

“You can’t…” began Foggy, and then he sighed in understanding. “Braille. Right. Well, let me read for you then. What chapter were you looking at?”  
  
“Ah… chapter nine.”  
  
“Okay.” There was the sound of flipping pages, and then Foggy pressed the pair of gloves into Matt’s hands. The now-bare skin of his fingers brushed against Matt’s. “Put these on. I’ll start reading. Okay. Um… ‘Case number 35482. The people versus…”

Matt pulled the gloves on. They were still warm from Foggy’s hands. As his roommate continued to read out loud, Matt leaned over and rested his head on his shoulder. Foggy’s voice faltered for a second, but he read on, tilting his head slightly so that his temple was against the top of Matt’s head. His pulse was starting to settle down.

The heat came back on not long after that. Matt and Foggy shed their blankets and jackets, but stayed sitting right beside each other. Matt let Foggy keep reading, too.

He liked the sound of his voice.

 

_ Spring _

 

It was a Saturday, the first warm, sunny Saturday of the the year. Foggy’s mother had sent him coupons for two hours of kayaking on a lake near Columbia University, a fact that Matt had only learned after Foggy had dragged him away from the essay he was writing and called a cab to bring them there.

Currently, Matt was dangling a hand into the water outside their kayak as Foggy rowed and gossiped about a girl who had lost her temper in his criminal psychology class.

“I just couldn’t believe she would say something like that to the professor,” Foggy was saying. “We were all just sitting in complete silence as she… Jesus, it’s bright out today.”

Matt grinned. “You should have worn sunglasses.” He paused for a moment as Foggy laughed, and then he took off his dark glasses and held them out to his boyfriend.

“You sure?” asked Foggy. “I know you don’t really like taking those off in public.”

He was right. Matt didn’t go without his dark glasses very often in public. It wasn’t that he was self-conscious; the glasses he wore were just as much an indicator of his blindness than the unfocused eyes behind them. But the glasses were an easy way to put up a barrier between him and everyone else. Matt’s father had told him once that he had eyes that made you want to know more about him. With the glasses on, he disappeared right into the crowd. Until he met Foggy Nelson, that was all Matt had wanted to be; just another face on the street.

“It’s fine,” he said. “It’s just us here.”

Matt heard the soft brush of Foggy’s hair moving as he slid the glasses on. “You know, these really don’t block a lot of light,” Foggy remarked.

“Really? I wouldn’t know,” replied Matt. “So, what happened next? What did the professor say?”

“I’ll tell you later,” said Foggy. “Matt, have I told you before that you have, like,  _ amazing  _ eyes?”

Matt smiled, feeling heat creep up under the collar of his cotton t-shirt. “Not in those words, no. Thank you. I’d say the same to you, but I have no idea what your eyes look like.”

“Oh, shut up,” said Foggy, but he chuckled anyway. He always did. His hands appeared on either side of Matt’s face, their lips brushing. Matt eased into the kiss, burying one of his hands in Foggy’s soft hair. He and Foggy had been dating for a couple of months, but other than the kissing and intentionally cheesy flirting, nothing much had changed. In a way, Matt had always loved Foggy. Even before he had realized that his feelings were romantic, he had loved him, in the ‘be the best man at my wedding’ kind of way. Now, Matt loved Foggy in the ‘ _ marry me  _ at my wedding’ kind of way. It was gratifying.

Foggy ran one of his thumbs over Matt’s cheekbone. Instead of drawing him in, however, the shiver that spread over his skin jolted him back to reality.

“Foggy?” he asked. “Where are your paddles?”

Foggy’s heart skipped a beat. “Shit,” he muttered. He pulled away, and Matt heard the kayak groan under them as Foggy, presumably, reached for the paddles that were drifting away. Matt swished his hand in the water, listening to the ripples. The paddle to his right seemed to be a couple of metres away, definitely out of Foggy’s reach.

Foggy, however, was definitely reaching.

“Wait--” Matt tried, but it was too late. The kayak began to tilt, slowly at first, and then, all of a sudden, Matt was underwater. The warm sun disappeared in a rush of freezing water; apparently the lake hadn’t gotten the memo that it was spring yet. There was a moment of senselessness; everything was far away, dark, cold. And then Matt surfaced. He could hear Foggy splashing around a few feet away from him and swearing under his breath. 

“Foggy,” Matt called over.

“Matt!” yelled Foggy. “Can you swim?!”

“You’re asking me that  _ now? _ ” laughed Matt. “Yes. Yes, I can swim.”

Foggy splashed toward him. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” responded Matt. “Where’s the kayak?”  
  
“Upside down,” groaned Foggy. “Hang on.” He swam away from Matt, and Matt listened to a steady stream of mumbled curse words as he tried to right it. There was a sound like a toilet being plunged, and then silence.

“Fuck,” said Foggy quietly. 

“What?”  
“It sank.”

Matt couldn’t help but laugh. “ _ What? _ ”

“It  _ sank, _ ” Foggy repeated, and laughed, too. “They’re never gonna let us come back here.”

Matt roared with laughter, head thrown back so far that the tips of his hair touched the water. He was cold, and he was pretty sure that the shore was at least a five minute swim away. But Foggy was laughing, too, and for one glorious moment, nothing else mattered.

 

_ Summer _

 

Matt Murdock was amazing at Marco Polo.

He hadn’t had many opportunities to play it in his life. Before he lost his sight, his father had encouraged him to focus more on his studies than playing with other children. After being blinded, the other children hadn’t wanted anything to do with him. And then, before he knew it, he had become an adult, and there wasn’t much time to play games when you were an adult.

Foggy Nelson was just as much an adult as Matt was. But it turned out that he liked Marco Polo, and it turned out Matt’s heightened sense of hearing made him amazing at it.

“Oh, screw you,” laughed Foggy as Matt swam up behind him. 

“I’m sorry,” said Matt. “I’m a Marco Polo master. I can’t help it.”

“You said you’d never played it before!”

“I haven’t.”

“Beginner’s luck, then.” There was a splash as Foggy dropped into the water, and then a wet hand pressed onto the back of Matt’s neck, drawing him in for a kiss. 

It had been almost two months since Matt and Foggy had written their final exams and moved out of their dormitory at Columbia University. Matt was living with Foggy and his parents because, in Foggy’s own words, “If we aren’t tired of each other yet, we probably won’t be anytime soon.” Besides, Matt had nowhere else to stay, and Foggy’s parents adored him.

Just then, someone called out, “Hey, Foggy! Matt!”

Matt tilted his head to listen; the voice was female, and sounded very familiar, but it wasn’t until Foggy called back, “Daria!” that he realized who it belonged to. Daria, the girl Foggy had had a crush on at the start of the year, the girl he had taken Punjabi to sidle up to. They had gone on a date, too, in September or October. However, nothing had come of it, and Foggy had started to mention Daria’s name less and less. When he and Matt had started dating, Daria had faded completely from the conversation. Matt had almost forgotten about her.

The water rippled and parted as someone approached. “I can’t believe you guys are here, too!” exclaimed Daria. “Oh… Matt, I don’t know if you remember me. I’m Daria. I was in Foggy’s Punjabi class.”  
  
“I remember,” said Matt. “Nice to hear from you again.”

“Yeah. Likewise. Uh, I was actually just going to get some ice cream for me and my boyfriend. So… I’ll see you!” Daria began to move away, and then stopped as she added, “You two make a nice couple, by the way. I don’t know if I said that before.”

A giddy mix of pride and embarrassment bubbled up inside of Matt. He laughed. 

“Bye, Daria!” Foggy called. And then, to Matt, “Man, I haven’t seen her in a while. That’s crazy.”

“You never went on a second date with her, did you?” asked Matt.

“Oh… no, I didn’t.”

There was something odd in his voice.  _ Could it have gone  _ that  _ badly?  _ thought Matt. “What happened?”

“Well…” Foggy faltered for a second, and then laughed again. “It started out really great. She was nice. She wore this adorable green dress. And it ended with her, uh, giving me advice on how to make you fall for me.”

It took a moment for his words to sink in. When they did, heat thundered into Matt’s face. “Wait… really?”

“She’s smart,” said Foggy. “She saw right through me. I still remember what she told me: ‘You may have liked me after we met at the freshman orientation, but that was before you met your roommate.’ She was right.”

“But you talked about that girl for months after we met,” Matt pointed out. 

“She told me to play it cool,” replied Foggy. “And it worked, didn’t it? Look at us.” 

“I can’t look at--“

“Yeah, you can’t look at anything. I know,” laughed Foggy. 

Matt grinned. “I think we spend too much time together.”

Maybe they did. After all, there hadn’t been a day since Matt and Foggy moved into their dorm room that they hadn’t seen each other at least once. They had been together through failed tests and bad dates and the flu. They had spent long nights studying in silence together, waking each other up every time they nodded off. They had gone from fast friends to best friends, and hadn’t stopped there. 

Maybe they  _ did  _ spend too much time together. But Matt didn’t mind. 

There was no one else he would rather be around.

 

end


End file.
